Vol 91 Issue 10

Congregational Activities In January, newly elected officebearers were installed in many Protestant Reformed Churches. This quote from the adopted Form was included on one of our church bulletins and serves as good counsel for officebearers and congregations alike: Therefore, ye elders, be diligent in the government of the church which is committed to you and the ministers of the Word. Be also, as watchmen over the house and city of God, faithful to admonish and to caution every one against his ruin. Take heed that purity of doctrine and godliness of life be maintained in the church of God…. On...

January 14, 2015 First Holland Protestant Reformed Church Classis East met in regular session on Wednesday, January 14, 2015 at the First Protestant Reformed Church of Holland, MI. The churches were each represented by two delegates. Rev. Heath Bleyenberg served as chair for this session. Classis received a protest from a brother against its decision taken at its September/October, 2014 session regarding the scheduling of Prayer Day services. The protestant argued that the way to make this change in the date for Prayer Day services would be through overture. Classis did not sustain this protest. The grounds given by Classis...

Annual synodical reports from our foreign missionaries are published in the PRC Acts of Synod. Slotted in the supplements along with the Foreign Mission Committee’s (FMC) annual reports rest the yearly snapshots from the eyes of our foreign missionaries about their labors on our foreign mission fields. Members of our denomination can read those reports and familiarize themselves with the history and the current status of our foreign mission work in the Philippines. However, one aspect of the reporting that our foreign missionaries do may not be so well known. That is our monthly reports. These are submitted at the...

Previous article in this series: December 1, 2014, p. 114. Jehovah is a Man of war (Ex. 15:3). His right hand dashes in pieces the enemy (Ex. 15:6). Jehovah has sworn that He will have war with Amalek from generation to generation (Ex. 17:16). Jehovah bends His bow like an enemy, and stands with His right hand as an adversary (Lam. 2:4). Jehovah is mighty in battle (Ps. 24:8) and mustereth the host of the battle (Is. 13:4). Jehovah teaches our hands to war and our fingers to fight (Ps. 144:1). Jehovah is “The Lord of hosts.” Hosts are armies...

Previous article in this series: November 15, 2014, p. 80. In the days of the Old Testament God warned His people about adding to or subtracting from the Scriptures: “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it” (Deut. 12:32). This same exhortation is found at the very end of the Bible, where God adds a warning about the punishment that will come upon anyone who does not heed what He says about this: For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book,...

Previous article in this series: January 15, 2015, p. 180. “The doctrine of the future is the best known element in dispensational theology, and at the same time, the least important…. [The] underlying concept [of dispensational theology] is the difference between Israel and the church.” “[Separating Israel and the church, dispensationalists] fundamentally misunderstand the Bible…. Dispensationalism… divides the people of God…. It divides the people of God into the endless future…. This proves that dispensationalism is not a biblical doctrine but is, in fact, anti-biblical at its essential level.” “Dispensationalism…destroys the salvation message.” – John H. Gerstner, “Primer on Dispensationalism”...

Previous article in this series: October 1, 2014, p. 10. Introduction If the Bible is not an altogether unique book, both as far as its contents and its authority are concerned, then the Christian Scriptures are reduced to what its critics, whether outside of Christianity or apostates from Christianity, allege: a merely human book, intended to solve merely human problems, flawed by human foibles, and suffering from the delusion that it is something more. If Christianity is to make good on any claim that it represents something greater than the other world religions, that it is not just another philosophy...

“What does it mean to be Reformed?” is a question I have asked catechism students for most of my ministry in order to help them become, so to speak, ecclesiastically self-aware. After all, they are members of Protestant Reformed Churches, and catechism serves to prepare them to become mature, confessing members of these churches. The word Protestant in “Protestant Reformed Churches in America” is not as significant as the word Reformed. “Protestant” refers mainly to the PRCA’s origins in 1924/25. For a time we were protesting Christian Reformed Churches. Eventually, after the protests were unsuccessful, we took to ourselves the...

This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men. But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself. Titus 3:8-11 This is the last of the five times Scripture speaks of “a faithful saying.” The other...